Yup, you’ve heard it all before, in fact you know about the power of email marketing and how it’s a critical part of any successful digital marketing strategy.

But here’s the thing: just sending out emails isn’t enough.

You need to measure the performance of your campaigns to understand what’s working and what isn’t.

That’s where tracking the right email marketing metrics comes in.

We think this isn’t talked about often enough – ( I mean who wants to talk about data right?)

But it’s important…

So let’s delve into the top Mailchimp metrics you should be tracking to evaluate the success of your campaigns to get valuable insights into your subscribers’ behaviour and preferences.

These insights will help you optimise your strategy for maximum engagement and ROI.

Sounds good, right?

How to find your Mailchimp Campaign Email Report?

First things first, how do you find your email report?

The results of your email campaigns are reported in email campaign reports. Here, you learn about the Unsubscribes, Social Media Engagement, Campaign Benchmarking, and Email Open and Click Rates, among other metrics.

Just head to the home page and click on the “Campaigns” icon. From there, choose the specific email campaign you want to view a report for and select “Reports.” You can then choose the audience you want to work with and select the email you want to see the report for. Finally, click the “View Report” button, and you’re good to go!

Key Metrics to Measure

Let’s take a look at some of the key metrics you should be focusing on.

Open Rate

The Open Rate is like a sneak peek into your subscribers interest level. It shows you the percentage of people who opened your email out of the total number of delivered emails. A high open rate is a good indicator that your subject line and preview text was compelling enough to make people want to click and read your content.

Low open rate? It’s a good idea to A/B Test different approaches, like using recipients’ names or adding emojis, based on the open rates scores.

An important note about Open Rates

However…It’s important to remember that there’s more to an email than just an open.

Why?

Firstly, a public service announcement about how email opens are tracked.

Email opens are tracked by tools like Mailchimp by adding a “pixel” into an email sent via their system.

When the email is “opened”, the email reader pulls in the information from the sender – and when it pulls the ‘pixel’, Mailchimp can tell someone’s opened the email.

The problem is, that in several instances, this can be misreported, for instance:

• If the email is opened, but the tool has “images blocked”, the pixel doesn’t get tracked, even though the email has been opened.
• If the email is viewed in a preview screen, the pixel gets pulled, but the email hasn’t been fully opened.
• So, fundamentally, tracking email opens can get you some screwy statistics that don’t “truly” represent how many people actually opened your emails – especially when comparing them to other businesses.

Also, It stands to reason that the more emails you deliver to an inbox, naturally, the more emails you’ll get opened.

Finally, 2022 saw several privacy related changes. One of the most significant changes being Apple releasing new privacy settings (Apple MPP) that prevented email users tracking information from Apple users such as the open rate. These changes have resulted in open rates going up as Apple “opens” the email before it hits the inbox giving it a false positive. This means you can’t necessarily trust your open rates, making them less relevant.

You can find out more by reading our blog why email open rates don’t matter here

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Click-Through Rate (CTR) is another important metric to measure. It shows you the percentage of subscribers who clicked on the links in your emails.

It’s important to note that clicks are more valuable than opens because they show that someone was interested enough in your content to take action.

Why are clicks so important? They show that your audience is engaged with your content and interested in learning more about your brand. They also give you valuable insights into what types of content and offers resonate with your audience.

A high CTR means your email is successfully driving traffic to your website or landing page, generating leads, and ultimately increasing revenue.

By measuring clicks and other important metrics, you can optimise your email campaigns to drive more revenue and build stronger relationships with your audience.

Low CTR numbers suggest there might be improvements needed within the content itself or the CTA’s (call to actions) placement within the email message.

Mailchimp provides a comparison of your recent campaign’s CTR, giving you a quick overview.

Read our blog on why CTR is crucial for email conversion

Unsubscribe Rate

Unsubscribe Rate shows the percentage of subscribers who choose to opt-out from receiving your emails. While it may be disheartening to see people unsubscribe, it’s important to remember that it’s not always a bad thing. In fact, it’s better to have a smaller, engaged audience than a larger one that isn’t interested in your content.

It’s important to monitor this rate and investigate any sudden spikes. It could be a signal to review your content and understand what triggered recipients to unsubscribe.

Email Bounce Rate

An email bounce occurs when your email fails to reach its intended recipient’s inbox. The bounce rate represents the percentage of emails that couldn’t be delivered. It’s essential to keep an eye on this metric to maintain a healthy email list. High bounce rates may indicate issues with email addresses or technical problems.

Regularly clean your email list, remove outdated addresses, and ensure smooth delivery to maximise your reach.

Find out more by reading our Blog, What to do with unsubscribed and cleaned emails in Mailchimp  HERE

Other really useful features

Device Reports

Mailchimp’s device reports provide insights into what devices your readers use to engage with your emails. For example, understanding the devices commonly used allows you to optimise your email design for seamless compatibility and an enhanced user experience.

Click Map

Mailchimp’s click map is an advanced feature that provides a visual representation of the links in your email that receive the most clicks. It helps you understand which sections of your email are attracting the most attention and engagement.

Here at Chimp Answers, we use this religiously, it tells us which CTA’s have been most effective in our recent campaigns (sometimes the results are really surprising!) and we use those results to maximise our future campaigns.

By analysing the click map, you can optimise your email layout, placement of CTAs (Call to actions) , and content hierarchy to maximise click-through rates.

Example: The click map reveals that the “Shop Now” button in your email received the highest number of clicks, indicating its effectiveness as a primary call to action. Utilise this knowledge and use the same button and placement in your next campaign to gain successful results.

24-hour Campaign Performance

When deciding when to send out your email campaigns, this small nugget is a game-changer. Although there are basic suggestions for the best days and hours, nothing beats examining the results of your individual campaign to determine the best time for most impact.

Analyse this data to identify patterns and optimise your sending times for maximum impact. Remember, timing is everything when it comes to capturing your subscribers’ attention!

Campaign Benchmarking

Mailchimp provides campaign benchmarking data that compares your email campaign’s performance against industry averages. This feature enables you to see how your open rates, click-through rates, and other metrics stack up against similar campaigns in your industry.

We wouldn’t say to focus on these too much, this isn’t the be all and end all but by understanding these benchmarks, you can set realistic goals and continuously strive to improve your performance.

Unopened Reports

It says it in the name, The Unopened Reports feature helps you target subscribers who haven’t seen your email yet, allowing you to re-engage them and maximise your campaign’s impact.

Best way to use this? give it 2-4 days and use the results of this report to resend a campaign to those who didn’t open.According to the Huffington Post, resending your unopened email a few days after the initial send can increase open rates by 30 percent.

Look at A/B testing by tweaking the subject line and adjusting the timing. It’s also worth changing the content layout or preview text slightly before you resend, in case your recipient eventually opens both emails. This will ensure they don’t think you’ve sent the same email twice which may prompt them to unsubscribe.

Top tips: Improving your results for the long term

By tracking these metrics, you can gain valuable insights into how your email marketing campaigns are performing. This information can help you improve your campaigns and get better results.

Here are a few examples of how you can use Mailchimp email campaign reports to improve your results:

• Test different things. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to email marketing. What works for one business might not work for another. Experiment with different subject lines, content, and offers, and always strive to provide value to your audience.
• Utilising the DORC (Deliverability, Openability, Readability, and Clickability) framework can greatly enhance the performance of your email campaigns. The DORC framework focuses on optimising key aspects of your emails to achieve higher engagement rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates.By paying attention to the DORC elements, you can ensure that your emails are delivered successfully, capture the attention of recipients, are easily readable, and entice recipients to click on your CTAs, resulting in better campaign performance and higher overall success.

Read more about the DORC Framework here

• If you see that your open rates are low, you may want to experiment with different subject lines or preview text. For example, you could try using a more personal subject line or adding an emojji to your preview text
• If your click-through rates are low, you may want to make sure that your links are clear and easy to click on. You could also try adding more calls to action in your emails
• If your unsubscribe rate is high, you may want to review your email content to make sure that it is relevant and valuable to your subscribers. You could also try sending fewer emails or segmenting your list so that you can send more targeted emails
• If your bounce rate is high, you may want to clean up your email list by removing any inactive or invalid addresses. You could also try using a double opt-in process to make sure that people who sign up for your list actually want to receive your emails.
• Set goals. What do you want to achieve with your email marketing campaigns? Do you want to increase sales, generate leads, or build brand awareness? Once you know your goals, you can track the right metrics to measure your progress.
• Be patient. It takes time to build a successful email marketing program. Don’t expect to see results overnight.
• Just keep testing and tweaking, and you’ll eventually see your efforts pay off.

 Final Thoughts 

Overall, understanding how to read a Mailchimp email campaign report is crucial for improving your email marketing strategy. By paying attention to key metrics such as unsubscribes, open rates, and CTR, you can get a better sense of what’s working and what’s not. Remember to experiment with different types of content and offers, and always strive to provide value to your audience.

Email campaign reports are a powerful tool that can help you improve your email marketing results. By tracking the right metrics and making adjustments as needed, especially utilising the DORC framework you can create campaigns that are effective and engaging.